Big, big kudos to the Houston Chronicle for eliminating the requirement that visitors register:
[T]he Houston Chronicle Web site has stopped requiring visitors to register by providing personal information before reading online articles.
[…]
Before abolishing mandatory registration, Chron.com had, for one year, intercepted online readers after several page views and asked for personal information, including their names, addresses, dates of birth, and household income. Weis said that Chron.com quietly eliminated the registration requirement in May as part of a site redesign, and has since “seen a very steady increase, and in some cases a jump, in site traffic.”
The paper didn’t publicize the move until this week, when it posted a note to readers explaining the redesign and the site’s new features. Registration is still required for certain offerings, including free access to the archives.
Great move. I wish every newspaper would stop this pointless exercise. Do they not realize that a huge number of their visitors are using phony identities and that some are choosing not to visit at all?
Ed Bott 
Actually, we dropped the registration requirement months ago, but didn’t make a big deal out of it. But because we’re also dropping the pay wall on our archives, it made sense to mention it now as part of our overall site redesign.
Amen! I can’t stand having to log into sites to just read an article. There is so much interesting content fighting for my attention, its just not worth it to login to.
If some of these serviced worked with MSN Passport, I’d consider that a happy comprimise.